THE PLACE OF S'ALMONIA

 

Let me tell you, that in my village...

I was six years old...

When those whom we know...

carriedthe whistling whip over the roofs...

 

M.À.RIERA

 

Invisible to you would be

thepath of my childhood,

in the midst of fog and darkness

actingas a barrier to the light

of time. But we,

our words gone dry, like the owl,

smell the wet soil

and instinctively we move on along the reeds

on the slippery stones

we wake the waves of

our memory. Along the path

of s´Almonia surrounding

the hills of innocence

we imagine the landscape

of a novel and a shotgun,

thin land where war

was never there for children

who played at making war

because life was a game.

 

Tenderness was raw

and all that scenery was

agift, thus, all ours,

becausewe had our parents

who sheltered the calm sea

all those slow years

ofephemeral childhood.

Memòria fòssil (Fossil memory), 2005

Translated by Núria Cohen.

(Manacor, 1950). Bernat Nadal is a poet and writer. He embarked on his literary career under the influence of Blai Bonet and Miquel Àngel Riera. He has been awarded various literary prizes such as Ciutat de Manacor, Premi de les Lletres de Campos and Premi Mallorca en Poesia“. His oeuvre includes La desintegració del desig (1971), Elegies (1971), Memòria fòssil (2005) or La carn que cruix (2009). He also writes prose and essays, and has collaborated with the print press.